§ Malcolm BruceTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people are receiving benefits into post of ice card accounts, broken down by(a) Child Benefit, (b) veterans agency payments, (c) pensions and (d) Jobcentre Plus payments. [156057]
§ Mr. Pond[holding answer 26 February 2004]All the information is not available in the format requested.
Information available for the latest available date of 24 January 2004 is given as follows from IAD Information Centre
The number of Post Office Card Accounts receiving payments of State Pension and Pension Credit is 125,205.
The number of Post Office Card Accounts receiving payments from Jobcentre Plus is 140,854.
Child Benefit accounts are now the responsibility of Inland Revenue. War Pension accounts are now the responsibility of the Ministry of Defence and are not included in these figures.
As many customers have already supplied their account details it is expected that the figures for Direct Payment into bank or building society accounts and Post Office card accounts will quickly rise, as customers existing methods of payment expire, and they move over to payment being made direct into their nominated account.
Source
DWP IAD Information Centre